[oc] sparc licensing (was: OpenCore In the news) (fwd)

[Graham Seaman <graham@collector.hscs.wmin.ac.uk>]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Thu, 16 Mar 2000 16:23:40 -0300
From: Jecel Assumpcao Jr. <jecel@merlintec.com>
Reply-To: cores@opencores.org
To: cores@opencores.org
Subject: [oc] sparc licensing (was: OpenCore In the news)

Jecel wrote:

>The Sparc ISA has been under control of Sparc International since the
>late
>1980s. Sun is, of course, the founding member of that organization. You
>can see
>http://www.sparc.org for more details. The ISA itself has always been
>free
>(like the specs for other Sun technologies, such as the NFS).

>> It seems that you still have to pay Sun when you use
>> GPLed SPARC cores. Am I wrong at this point?

>The Sparc cores are not available to everyone, only to the members of
>the"Sun Community". Of course, since anyone can become a member for free,
this
>isn't
>much of a restriction. Their license has two levels: research and
>internal
>deployment. For commercial use you have to negotiate a new license with
>them
>where you have to pay royalties (always on a fixed per unit basis).


Jecel,

Haven't the ESA got round this with their Sparc-alike? At least that's
how I understood this quote from http://eet.com/story/OEG20000306S0096:
<quote>
"The Sparc architecture is an IEEE standard so it is an open standard.
There are no limitations on designing around it," said Gaisler.
"However the trademark belongs to Sparc International Inc. We   
 can't call Leon a Sparc but we can call it
Sparc-compatible. I have been in touch with Sparc
 International regarding the licensing issues.
</quote>

If I understand this correctly, all you have to do is call your
processor 'sparc-compatible', and then you don't need to worry
about the 'community license'. Or am I misunderstanding?

Graham